Paint Basket Art Forum

In order for me to easily find and answer queries about this Lesson, I will appreciate it if everyone will keep these to this specific Lesson posting only. This will be of benefit to you now as well as in the future. Thanks

:surrender: OK, I am going to attempt to do a bit more on these...but I'm going to start from scratch when the replay comes out. I'm sure glad Dennis slows it down for us! ;D I'll take a photo of it as it is now once it finishes drying, then another when I've finished committing hare-kare. :death: My second eye will definately make a pretty good lizard eye...just add a few scales.... :2funny: Great going Natalie and Jenny, I was diving for paint tubes, hair dryer, rigger brush...never had so much fun! :heeha: :clap: :clap:

:clap: :clap: Fantastic job of the eyes Jennylynn and Natalie. Once again, I missed so much because of my computer "buffering". Anyway, I enjoyed what I saw and tried to follow along with many gaps but will repeat the lesson when the replay comes out. Patricia

So...maybe a few scales...hint of green? >:D Could be! Photo is not very good, couldn't hurt it anyway! ;D Had to load photo onto my android, transfer to flashdrive, upload from there. While I was mixing my orange, Dennis had his half painted! One replay to go garcon! ;D

Mary :2funny: . Now Val. There should be no alcohol present during a paint along. Did you see Dennis sipping away over his eye? :drink2drop: Poor Nolan has enough to take care of. Course it was Super Bowl Sunday and you were in Canada. I LOVE your eye! :) It's the well-placed cauliflower at the bottom the makes it a little reptilian. You aren't the Cauliflower Queen for nothing. But you know what--all that aside, I really like the iris. The outside darkness is blended beautifully and there is the suggestion of the little pleats(?) without becoming too tight and fussy for the medium. Good job! :yippee:

Ok here is my paint long. I also went ahead and painted the last set of eyes. Even though I did not know what I was doing. :2funny: :2funny: I did enjoy doing this. Even though I have never, never done anything with Portraits.Nina :flowers:

Here's my take on the eyes lesson. I missed a lot because of buffering and don't even know whether I have done these eyes correctly but thought I would try them anyway. Once again, all comments and critiques are most welcome. Patricia

Super duper job one the eyes everyone. . . . I can see that you are all away, way ahead of me. . . I can't figure out how you could paint and watch at the same time. . . . y'all got more eyes than me, for sure :2funny: :2funny:

:thankyou: Roxy. After all the "buffering" when the computer returned, Dennis was an eye ahead but I thought that I would still give it a try as it is practice and all the wonderful forum members will guide me if Dennis doesn't manage to, before the replay comes out. So I am in a good place. Patricia

val what can i say mmmm looks good to me especially love the eye itself , really good even with the alcohol lol :2funny: nina love your eyes, they all look pretty good to me, and the bottom set of eyes wow :clap: :clap: patricia really impressed cause you didn't have much luck with the live class really good job on your eyes :clap: :clap:

Hey Roxy, Spill the beans and tell us the funny story too ..... I LOVE to laugh. I went back and looked at the replay and boy, Dennis was more than an eye ahead of me. I never saw anything of that model at the beginning ... anyway, she gave me the creeps for she is so real looking!! Yes, I missed a lot which is frustrating but I am thankful for the replays. Patricia

:thankyou: to each of you who made comments on my eyes. It was fun. I kept up with Dennis until the third one. Then something happened. Dennis put his speedo's on :run: an I lost sight of him. :2funny: :2funny: Each of you who painted a long did a great job. O0 O0 O0 :congrats: It is hard to do a paint a long. You eyes have to dart back and forth. it gets pretty dizzy out here. :2funny: But don't let that stop you.Nina :flowers:

Oh if only I could do cartoons. . . . "Dennis was an eye ahead" then "Dennis put his speedo on"Oh dear, Dennis I'm so sorry; but I can't help it, the imp inside :devil2: just gets out. . . . . :2funny: :2funny: :2funny: :2funny:

Please don't hate me!! I do want to take some classes from you later! :2funny: :2funny: :2funny:

Patricia, I think you need to be a bit careful with the purity of the colours. Especially the blues and greens. The blues and greens are a lot more muted in the photos. Also from experience, the real piercing blues are fewer and further between than most people think. Except when it comes to Siamese cats! :2funny:

Every one did a super job considering it was a reasonably fast session. I didn't realize that I spent longer on the PDF than I had intended to - it's all part of living and life ;) so I had to get on my motorized skateboard (somewhere on the Forum there is a cartoon of it I made long ago).I'm not going to comment on the eyebrows as they were not part of the lesson.My comments will take into account that they were painted at speed as a paint-a-long.All of you you are just fantastic :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

Jenny, Be careful with the highlights in the eye. Also soften the dark ring in the inside of the iris area.Natalie, The lighter area in the iris should be opposite the highlight.Val, With all that alcohol I don't see the bloodshot eyes :2funny: :2funny: Nina, Excellent O0 Patricia, Be careful in not putting the highlight too close to the center of the pupil (some of the others also made the same mistake)Bill, :welcome: to the Paint Basket. Make sure the pupil is in the center of the iris ring (common mistake)

It is good to see more and more starting the paint-a-long with me. As I have said before - This will put your progress on the fast track O0

It's my first time posting on the PB forum. I love this course Dennis, I have been dabbling in watercolour portraits and character paintings for a few months now, I love painting and sketching babies and children.

I didn't manage to paint along with the live tutorial and I haven't been able to download the PDF (there is no link to click) so I downloaded some eyes from the net.

Hi Messina, congrats, your eyes are very well done :clap: :clap: :clap: Just be careful with the eyelashes on the lower eyelid. Normally there are only a very few and then very light and thin. If there are, then play them down - they must NOT compete with the lashes on the top lid.

:welcome: Messina to our Paint Basket family. Your eyes are absolutely fantastic. Good job. Patricia :thankyou: Dennis for your critique of my eyes, I will watch out for the high-lights in the eyes in future. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. Patricia

Thank you so much everyone, for your warm welcome, I am sure I'm going to love it here. Thanks Dennis, :) for your critique, I know what you mean about the first eye and her spidery lower lashes. A bit OTT!! lol

I can't wait for the next lesson, painting and drawing hair is my major downfall!! uggh!

That is such fun Messina to have a new member of the band. I haven't tried my eyes yet. I'm in another project. But I am watching along and hoping to be able to be able to come even close to your beautiful eyes!!! Portraits are an obvious strength for you. Welcome.

Messina, :welcome: to PB. I just love what you posted. Much more than just eyes. Beautiful. Just watched this. No PDF yet but a truly awesome lesson. I added this 5th eye as just an experiment for a "loose eye". Thanks tons Dennis. Found that keeping the roundness was very hard!!!

:nono: Dennis....the alcohol soaked through the paper from a most feable attempt at some abstract. Not going to discuss the outcome of that! :-X Too much help from one of the four legged furry critters. :eyesclosed: A few red veins might just help this poor fellow.....nothing sadder than a hungover lizard... :2funny:

One word.... WOW!!!!I was unable to make the class and today has been the 1st. down day this week!! looked at all the mind blowing paintings you have all done and i am blown away by the fantastic quality of all of your work :clap: :clap: :clap: x's 10,000!

I'm going to watch the replay and then come back and look again at all the great work for additional Inspiration. Too drained to try to paint along :( , even with the pause button.

And a belated :bday: :bday: :bday: :bday: :bday: to Lillian!!

Remember the Super Woman comics??? They where modeled after Lillian !!!

I miss being as active as I was on the forum...looking forward to MY world slowing down

Andrew, you are doing well :clap: :clap: :clap: Don't try and fix this eye. Do another one and then you can easily judge the progress from one painting to another. I still do this on a regular basis when I am studying something new. I am also still on a learning curve :) The iris in the second eye is too much on the black side. I assume it was supposed to be brown - I think you used too much blue in the mix of Burnt Sienna.

RE: your 1st. "eyes"... Your "misteak" gave me real "meat" to consider...What a beautiful sense of sadness those eyes hold!! I want to file that away in my "tool box" for later use...And I might not have even thought of that being able to express in watercolor w/o you posting your painting!! :thankyou:

All well done and not a lizard eye among them! ;D Hope to see you tomorrow....going to rummage through the paints and see if I can put some reasonable colours together. I think I should be good to have a go. O0 Ahem....Dennis dahling....any chance we could go at say.... 1/3 - 1/2 speed? :whistle: I don't have any batting eyelashes....but I do have a bat! :knuppel2: :crazy2: :-*

Brian, good to see your work again. Your eyes do really express themselves! Great Job :clap: :clap: Carol.. (does this one make Carol 3??) If I get you confused with Carol and Carl 2, forgive me... anyway these are great looking eyes!!! Kudos!

You have done well with the eyes, Peter :clap: :clap: :clap: One point: Putt the highlights to the side of the pupil and not in them - you don't want to make a painting from a photograph taken with a flash even if it was.

I wanted to do more eyes so here is George with his smiling eyes! I just noticed something--I forgot to put in his lashes!!!! So I resubmitted--don't know if you can see a difference. I cropped my painting to show just the eyes.

With the size of Gorgeous's eyes (or distance he appears to be from viewer) I'm not sure eyelashes are necessary. Your dark shadow area would suggest their presence. You should do well with the live lesson tomorrow. You have a head (oops! :2funny: ) start on the rest of us. I still have several of the element lessons to make up. But it will be fun to see how everyone else does.

The eyes are nicely done :clap: :clap: :clap: However, as with so many others who make the same "mistake", the problem is to put the eye highlight right in the center of the pupil instead of off to the side - even if the photograph shows it in the center (caused by the flash).

Wow.....Everyone has done a stellar job!! Congrats everybody! :clap: I'm just starting this one, too, Zilpa, so we'll see how we make out. Your #1 eye is beautiful. Good job.I didn't think that portraits would be so much fun....whooohoooo. Practice....practice....practice.....practice!!

Nice Zilpa! Oops, now that I see yours, I realize I forgot the young lady's eyebrow. Let's just say she is an overtweezer and I refused to draw it on for her. I'm trying to catch up, too. Not sure i can do it by Sunday, though. I'm sure you will, Zilpa. Well done.

This comment is for everyone: It pays to take just a little more time and effort to make sure the irisses are perfectly round and also that the pupil is dead center in the iris. Remember that the very first thing looked at are the eyes before anything else. It's all the tiny things that add quality and give the painting that professional look. I'm busy training you to look for the small things that most other artists overlook. You are all doing great :thankyou:

Much better than mine Pamela O0 I was in one of those, where's this, forgot that days :D I will have to sit and go through the portrait series slowly. I really want to take my time with those, I want to be able to paint my new and old friends and illegally adopted family members.....you never know who will pop up there... :whistle:

Okay Pamela and Val--it's a plan. Slow and steady wins the race. I want to go through the lessons that way too. I seem to have accomplished one eye and one mouth so far. You tackled the whole darn page Pamela. Good for you. I am first in the process of learning to draw portraits. Then I'll go back to my portrait watercolor practice.

Hi Doina, looks like the portrait class is coming along.It might be the photograph but the pupil doesn't look as if it's dead center in the iris or the iris isn't a perfect circle. I did the same thing when I did the class too. The other thing is the lines around the eyelids. There aren't any hard lines in the face, the lines are actually rounded skin so there should be some shading there even if it's fairly narrow. If you darken up the skin tone it will make the shading easier to do and make the light tone inside the lower lid stand out on it's own. I like the green though very attractive.Brian

Thank you Brian for your comments. The lines around de eyelids, I did not believe that they belong, but when I look at Dennis lesson in PDF, I had the impression that he highlighted them. I will correct. As for the pupil being in the center of the eye, it is. If you consider also the eye part that is under the eyelid, it is smack in the middle. I went back and searched the lesson. Dennis pupil in the eye is in the same location. I'll try to change in another trial, and I'll see the difference. Thanks again, Doina

well, here is the blue eye. I had a problem with lesson forwarding. As of last night I finished tow of them, this morning I wanted to go directly where I left off last night. I waited 20 minutes to run and it did not :tickedoff: :tickedoff: Then I went to the PDF, which I was not very fond of the blue eye step instruction :whistle: This is the best I was able to do. I'll send a message to Nolan to see if they are any tricks to go directly to the time you want on the taped lesson. Doina

Doina to go directly to the time on a prerecorded lesson put your cursor on the bottom of the screen and the time slider will pop up. Move the cursor from left to right and wherever the curor is on the slider will show a time (55.30 for instance) if you left click with that number shown then the recording will start at that point after a short pause.Works for me.The roundness of the eye may look distorted if the camera wasn't parallel to the painting when you took the photograph, lenses create all kinds of distortion that way.Brian

It's been a while since I've posted/painted anything. Good to be back on the forum -- so much art to catch up on. I'm impressed by all the eyes on this thread :clap: :clap: :clap:Here's mine. Feedback, as always, very welcomed. Thanks!

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: Yaaaaaay!!! I am so pleased to see you back Denise. We have missed you. Your eyes are FANTASTIC. Take your time and enjoy the art, there is no rush to catch up. It is just so lovely to see you painting again. WELCOME BACK so pleased you have come home.

Finally started the eyes lesson. The orange that I have is a cadmium orange, so after the first eye I added some red to it. Also my viridian is a viridian hue and it just does not seem to be the right color. Any suggestions, hints,etc would be so appreciated. I am very inexperienced painting people so I really enjoyed the eyes lesson.Kris

Beautifully done Kris, one suggestion on the first eye, you could try to round the eye on the left side it is a bit off comming to the bottom of the lid. Love the lashes on the 2 nd one :clap: :clap: :clap:

Very nice eyes, Kedde :clap: :clap: :clap: Just be very careful in getting the iris absolutely round and the pupil dead center. Even if the photograph has the highlights right in the center of the pupils you must shift them to one side to make them look natural. With them in the center is a dead give-away that a flash has been used.

What I love about doing the lessons with Dennis and Nolan are the little gems of info you get that make all the difference to a subject. I have been dabbling in some portraits but really painting the faces loosely and from a distance as that way i could kind of avoid any major detail that would get me into trouble. The shadow inside the eye tip here and the eye lashes being in "families, are little nuggets of info. As well as the parts of the eye i honestly wasnt even seeing before.

Anyways heres my attempts and i did end up getting looser and looser as time went on but I got the just of it and learnt plenty

Very well done, Trev :clap: :clap: :clap: Just be very careful in making the Iris absolutely round for a frontal view. The top right hand one is correct. Also the pupil must be completely in the center of the iris.

A couple years you gave me the tip to do more than one study on a piece of paper and I have been doing it ever since. I like how you did it here on the eyes. Great to have things side by side for comparison.

So glad you took this lesson, Trev - it was one of the most important one I think of the portrait series. Centering is definitely important...and keeping the eyeballs round, too. I think you did really well!! :clap: :clap: